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Covent Garden
Gavin Anderson

Covent Garden area guide

What to see, do, eat, drink and more in London’s glitzy district of theatres, shops and restaurants

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High on every tourist’s visiting agenda, Covent Garden offers a mixed bag of restaurants (including some great fine dining options), shops, hotels and more. The area is synonymous with the Royal Opera House, hosts daily alfresco entertainment at its central piazza, and is surrounded by a plethora of famous theatres. Chain stores have moved in, but it’s still a nice place to stroll – if you can catch it early on a fine morning.

The best bits of Covent Garden

15 reasons to go to Monmouth Street, WC2

15 reasons to go to Monmouth Street, WC2

‘Monmouth Street has still remained the burial-place of the fashions,’ Charles Dickens proclaimed in ‘Sketches by Boz’, ‘and such, to judge from all present...

Restaurants in Covent Garden

Balthazar

Balthazar

  • 4 out of 5 stars

In early 2013, Keith McNally’s much-anticipated NYC import Balthazar finally opened, and London got to see what this Manhattan interpretation of a French...

Chick 'n' Sours

Chick 'n' Sours

  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • price 1 of 4

If there’s a god of fried chicken, Chick ’n’ Sours is His greatest gift. Born into a city awash with chicken shops in 2015, the first, Dalston-based branch of...

Flesh & Buns

Flesh & Buns

  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • price 3 of 4

How did food get quite so rock ’n’ roll? This summer London’s teeming with ‘gourmet’ fast food joints, rooftop pop-up bars, night food markets and street food...

Café Murano Covent Garden

Café Murano Covent Garden

  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • price 3 of 4

Opened in 2013, Café Murano in St James’s is a marble and dark leather affair. This new Covent Garden branch is a more relaxed version, and well suited to the...

Covent Garden highlights

Cheap eats in Covent Garden

Cheap eats in Covent Garden

  • price 1 of 4

Finding somewhere decent to eat on a budget isn’t always easy in central London, but if you know where to look, there’s plenty to sink your teeth into in the...

Where to shop

Where to shop

Covent Garden is brimming with fashion boutiques and vintage stores. Home to fashion favourites such as Rokit, Orla Kiely and Opening Ceremony, as well as a...

Covent Garden's best pubs

Covent Garden's best pubs

Covent Garden boasts an array of pubs ranging from traditional (like Cross Keys) to modern (Porterhouse). The area is home to one of London's oldest pubs, The...

Covent Garden's best bars

Covent Garden's best bars

Cabaret, live music and some of the city's best cocktails - Covent Garden has it all. Try the raunchy fun of cabaret bar Cellar Door, or hang out at relaxed...

What's on in Covent Garden this week

Standing at the Sky’s Edge

Standing at the Sky’s Edge

  • 5 out of 5 stars

Richard Hawley and Chris Bush’s monumental musical love letter to a Sheffield estate is unlike anything else in the West End

Covent Garden
An Enemy of the People

An Enemy of the People

  • 4 out of 5 stars

Now in English and starring Matt Smith, Thomas Ostermeier’s legendary Ibsen production is surreal, provocative and very funny

Covent Garden
The Motive and the Cue

The Motive and the Cue

  • 4 out of 5 stars

Johnny Flynn and Mark Gatiss are sensational in the National Theatre’s transferring Richard Burton drama

Covent Garden

See a play in the West End

Top 10 West End theatre shows

Top 10 West End theatre shows

Make sure you're booking for the best of the season with our critics' guide to the ten most recommended West End theatre shows on right now. The list will be...

Cheap West End theatre tickets

Cheap West End theatre tickets

Unless the show is very hot or the run is short, you should be able to shop around and get discounted tickets to any West End show via third party sellers like...

Hotels in Covent Garden

St Martins Lane Hotel

St Martins Lane Hotel

  • price 4 of 4

So, you grab a golden hand sticking out of a wall and a door opens to the buzz of a party on the other side. Close it again, look around and the reception area...

The Hospital Club

The Hospital Club

Opened in an eighteenth-century hospital building as a club for creative people, Covent Garden’s Hospital Club features 15 rooms across a range of categories,...

The perfect weekend in Covent Garden

Browse: Stanfords

Browse: Stanfords

While away an afternoon in exotic lands at this specialist travel bookshop and map seller

Drink: Cross Keys

Drink: Cross Keys

  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • price 1 of 4

Sip a pint on the cheap at an endearing, authentically old-school London pub

Love London Awards: last year's winners

Dishoom

Dishoom

  • 4 out of 5 stars

A swish Bombay brasserie in the style of the old post-colonial 'Irani cafés' of Bombay, Dishoom is filled with retro design features: whirring ceiling fans,...

Monmouth Coffee Company

Monmouth Coffee Company

Founded 30 years ago, Monmouth sets itself daunting standards for quality and ethical trading, and meets them consistently. This is pre-eminently a place for...

Neal's Yard Dairy

Neal's Yard Dairy

A thoroughly British shop with a traditional French attitude to cheese retailing in that, like an affineur, Neal’s Yard buys from small farms and creameries in...

London Transport Museum

London Transport Museum

  • 4 out of 5 stars

From the entertaining entrance, where audiovisual recordings of transport systems in New York, Tokyo, Paris, Shanghai and New Delhi, as well as London, are...